Further down I wore stylish ankle boots. Not the best for running, but I could make do. Sticking out of one of them was a piece of paper.
Use the back door. Second floor, first door on the left.
My heart dropped. The note was in the same handwriting as all the others. I didn’t know what it meant. Why had the government sent me—before they’d even reached out to me—to kill Adrian or break open his safe, only to then send me to that office and look through those awful cases of spliced teleporters?
When I looked up from the note, Caden stood in front of me.
“Jesus!” I staggered backwards and clutched my heart.
“You okay?” That was the second time he’d asked me that question today. I wondered if my craziness was starting to show.
“I’m fine.”
“Good, then let’s go.”
I didn’t have a clue what we were going to do, so I let Caden lead the way, making sure to use the time to admire the way his muscular back rippled under his fitted shirt.
We walked down the alley until we came to a door that had been cracked open.
Caden held it open. “Ladies first.”
I slipped through and Caden followed behind. We continued down a dark hallway. Strobe lights and obnoxious techno music pulsed at the far end, but that wasn’t our destination. A chained-off staircase branched off the hall.
My heart began to hammer in my chest as soon as I saw it. Whatever we were looking for was up there.
Caden took my hand and gave it a squeeze, his eyes trained on mine. “Focus on your breathing—in and out.” I followed his instructions. It did relax me—until I glanced at our entwined hands.
Quickly Caden was becoming something more than just a partner, and now he was risking his life alongside mine. The thought filled me with dread. I didn’t know how to look out for others during these trips; I’d never had to before.
He let go of my hand and climbed over the chain. Reluctantly I followed him, and together we climbed up the stairs.
When we reached the top, a curved corridor spread out in front of us. Exposed light bulbs hung down the hallway, barely giving off enough light to see clearly. Up ahead was the door on the left.
Caden grabbed my arm as I began walking towards it. He spun me around and put a finger to his lips. I nodded. He then placed himself in front of me. From his pocket he pulled out a gun. I stiffened at the sight.
No. I didn’t care what kind of simulation this was, a gun was a gun, and if used, we could still get spliced.
I shook my head frantically. I was supposed to be the distraction after all.
Caden gave me a look to let me know I was insane to ask him to put away his weapon. He fiddled with the gun, and I heard a click. Whatever the sound indicated, his expression told me that he had no intention of disarming himself.
“Caden, no,” I whispered.
“I didn’t just teleport here with a weapon to be a peacemaker,” he whispered back.
“Fine, then stay here while I try to be one.” I got up and began walking to the door again, shaking out my hands as if that would rid me of my nerves.
“Ember—no,” Caden said, shadowing me. “Whatever’s in there is dangerous. You can’t go in alone.”
I turned to him and pointed a finger at him. “Stay back there.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing. You haven’t had enough training yet.”
“Just listen to me for once,” I said, pushing him back.
I pushed a little too hard.
Caden hit the hallway wall. I saw the moment of impact, and the way the whiplash ran down his arms. His wrists snapped as they hit the wall, and a shot exploded from the gun. The sound rang in my ears long after the bullet was fired.
Epic fail.
“What the fuck Ember?”
I never got the chance to reply. Almost immediately the first door on the left opened, along with three others further down the hall; it happened so fast that these doors must’ve been guarded from the inside. And out of them poured more scary looking individuals than the time I teleported into a biker bar. And they all were armed. So much for trying to avoid splicing.
Caden pushed me behind him, braced the gun with both hands, and fired several shots. I only had time to see a few people fall before Caden grabbed my hand and we ran for dear life.
“What were you thinking, Ember?” Caden yelled as we flew over the stairs.
“I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” It sounded ridiculous now that several men were bleeding out their lives behind us.
“We’re partners,” Caden shouted over the pounding music. “You can’t just go rogue on me and decide to do your own thing.”
“I thought this was a simulation!” I yelled, using anger to cover up my fear.
“It is—that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
What the hell?
We hopped over the chain. Behind us gunshots rang out, and sparks bounced off the metal railing behind us.
Caden turned for the exit and I yanked him in the opposite direction. “Out there we’re exposed.” I glanced at my clock. Six minutes and fifty-seven seconds. That was an eternity when someone was after you. If we ran down an empty street, we might survive, but chances were we’d get hit. And then spliced.
“We have too long to wait before we go back to the facility,” I said. “We’re going to have to hide within the club.” The crowd would conceal us.
After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. The pounding music was so loud that the sound drowned out all other noise. We wound our way through the club, the club goers oblivious to the fact that multiple gunshots had been fired in the building.
As we passed the dance floor, Caden tugged us towards it. We slipped between other warm dancing bodies until we were snug in the middle of the crowd. My body pressed itself flush against his, and I looked up at him. His eyes moved over the sea of people, then quickly moved back to my own. “Don’t look anywhere but me.”
“I think I know how to blend in Caden.”
“Oh really? So that’s what you were doing upstairs when you attacked me.”
“No one told me this was going to be real!”
“Real or not, you don’t attack your partner—ever!”
“You could’ve just trusted me! I was trying to do my job as a distractor!”
“You’re not ready!”
“Our bosses seem to think I am!”
Caden’s eyes flicked away from mine as something on the edge of the dance floor caught his attention. His eyes moved back to mine, but only for a moment, and then he leaned down and kissed me.
Adrenaline thrummed through my veins, but right now it screamed at me to run from the danger—not kiss the man in front of me. I tried to push away, but Caden’s arms tightened around me, his lips parting my own.
His tongue caressed mine, surprising me enough that my muscles loosened and I responded. My lips moved over Caden’s, my tongue pressing back against his. He tasted like a dare, like a challenge I’d gladly accept, and his touch tempered my skittishness.
I snaked my arms around his neck and swayed my hips in time to the music. I was sure he could feel how I trembled. My mind could distract itself from what had happened, but my body couldn’t.
Caden’s hands slid down to my sides, and he followed the rhythm. For what seemed like an eternity we stayed like that. The guilt that tightened my chest never seemed to fully go away, but Caden’s presence demanded most of my attention.
Eventually, I pulled back long enough to gaze at him, my eyes moving between his. Just beyond him, I felt another pair of eyes on me.
I glanced past Caden. An Asian man with tats all over his face, neck, and arms, stood at the edge of the dance floor, and he stared
right back at me.
For a moment neither of us moved. But I knew I’d been found out. Someone who was innocent wouldn’t be staring at him with the same wide eyes I was.
“Caden, move,” I said, not taking my eyes off the man.
“What?” Instead of moving, he tried to shield me with his body, scanning the club to find whatever had spooked me.
The man raised his weapon.
“Gun!” I screamed, pushing Caden down. The strobe lights cut the events into frames. One moment the girl to my left was fine. The next, a bullet tore through her arm. I cupped my hand over my mouth to muffle my scream.
Around us I could see others screaming, but I couldn’t hear them over the sound system. My eyes trailed back to the girl, who clutched her arm close to her. Rivulets of blood snaked between her fingers.
I felt the bracelet I wore vibrate twice, and then I vanished.
I woke up in a hospital bed in a different room. A thin cloth sheet covered my now-naked body. Next to the bed someone had neatly folded my clothes. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. A cloth partition hid me from the rest of the room.
I kicked off my sheets, scrambled out of the bed, and shoved my clothes on. My whole body trembled, and I thought I might be sick.
That girl—was she okay? And all those people Caden had shot at the beginning of our simulation—had they died?
Awful, noxious guilt settled in my stomach. I’d tried to do the right thing; I’d tried to avoid violence by insisting that I distract the targets. The whole thing was terribly ironic because in the end I’d pushed Caden, and that had led to a great deal of violence.
I slid the cloth curtain aside. The clock above my head indicated that it was 3:30 p.m. I’d been asleep for hours. Across from me sat two women in scrubs; both read magazines and neither bothered to glance up when I poked my head out.
On either side of me similar cloth curtains hid what had to be other teleporters sleeping off the sedatives. At least I knew how they choreographed when we appeared at a location.
I squeezed my eyes shut. What had I been thinking? I knew a mistake could be lethal; I just had assumed it was me who’d get hurt.
I left the room. I had no idea where I was in the maze of the facility, but the more I walked, the more urgently I needed to escape. I began jogging, and when that didn’t help, I accelerated until my muscles burned.
I sprinted down a hall, unsure of where I was and where I was heading, hooked a right, and turned down another. At the end of this corridor, I spotted the dining hall. At least I now knew where I was.
I flew past it and a confused Eric.
“Ember, you okay?” the blond teleporter called after me.
I didn’t—couldn’t answer him.
A minute later I crashed into my room. I wasted no time peeling off my clothes and starting the shower.
Before the water had a chance to heat up, I got in and began to scrub away blood that hadn’t teleported back with me. I scrubbed until my skin was pink and raw, and then I cried.
The heaving sobs shook my body, and I covered my eyes with a hand. I couldn’t wash away guilt.
I don’t know how long I stood in the shower like that, but at some point I heard pounding on the door. I made no attempt to move. They’d go away eventually.
After a while the sound stopped. Just when I was about to relax, I heard the door open and close and someone’s heavy footfalls cross my room.
“Ember!” Caden shouted from the other side of the bathroom door. “Ember!”
My legs buckled and I slid down the wall of the shower. I didn’t want to face him yet. And I didn’t want him to see me like this. Weak.
“If you don’t answer me and let me know you’re alright, then I’m coming in!”
I opened my mouth to make him go away, but no words came out.
The door opened, and I squinted up at Caden, water dripping from my face. At least it hid my tears.
He took me in for a moment, and then he slid into the shower, clothes and all, and wrapped his arms around me.
I leaned my forehead in the crook where his neck met his chest. “I’m so sorry Caden. I’m so, so sorry.” I’d never been exposed to that kind of violence before, and now it was all I could see when I closed my eyes.
“Shhhh.” He traced the edges of my tattoo, and I slid my arms around him, not caring that I was naked. “You’re okay.”
“But they aren’t.” My voice broke.
“The people at the club? The girl will be fine. I saw the wound—it missed all vital arteries. And those with the guns … it was them or us.”
His words only slightly eased my guilt.
His hand slid under my chin and he brought my face up to his. “Don’t play the blame game Ember,” he said, his eyes moving back and forth between mine. “This isn’t your fault, no matter what I said to you during the simulation. Someone else decided to give us this life and someone else decided to fuck with our genes. And now someone else is using us to play God.”
I curled my hand around the one that held my chin up. His words tapped into that place inside me that had been untouchable, that place that I’d held away from everyone.
I wasn’t alone in this.
My gaze moved from his eyes to his mouth. I slid my other hand behind his neck and brought my lips to his.
For a moment Caden stilled, and then his hold tightened. I parted my lips to deepen the kiss, pulling myself even closer to him. Even that wasn’t enough to satiate my desperate need.
I tugged at his wet T-shirt, and we broke off the kiss so that he could pull it over his head.
“God Ember,” he said, leaning his head against mine, “You can’t know—”
I stopped him with another deep kiss. I couldn’t think enough to process any confessions he made about his feelings, and I definitely wasn’t in the right mind frame to return them, no matter how much I liked him.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and straddled him, pressing my chest against his. I’d never been this forward before, but I’d also never been this close to so much death.
Caden made a noise at the back of his throat, and he gripped the outside of my thighs.
I moved against him and he broke away from the kiss. “Jesus,” he said, his eyes hooded, “you need to stop or else I can’t promise this won’t go any further.”
“I’m fine with that,” I whispered.
He pulled his face away from me to study my expression. Whatever he saw caused his brow to crinkle and me to sober up. “I don’t think you are Ember. I’m sorry, but I don’t think you are at all.”
My face fell, and I didn’t have the energy to hide my hurt. Caden’s brow furrowed and he cupped my chin. “I’ve spent all this time trying to figure you out, but you, I don’t think you’ve even tried figuring me out,” he said. “Otherwise it’d be obvious that I like you. I like you so much that it’s seriously starting to concern me.”
At his words I could feel my sadness and guilt ebbing, replaced by a wonderful kind of curiosity. In spite of myself I cracked a smile. He noticed my smile and leaned in and gave me a quick kiss. “So happy to see that smile again, princess.”
The kiss took me by surprise, and I grinned a little more after he pulled away. In spite of my dark mood, my stomach felt bubbly and light, like I could laugh for hours.
Caden eyed me. “Don’t think this,” he moved his hand between the two of us, “is over. Because whatever this is, it’s just beginning.”
Chapter 17
I slumped in the guest chair I found myself in. Across the desk Dane Richards sat, hands folded, assessing me. I knew things were bad when he made a special visit to the facility and called me in for a late night meeting just to rip me a new one.
“What were you thinking?” he said.
My eyes lifted from the linoleum floor. Rather than looking at Richards, I focused my attention on one of the plaques hanging behind him. They had words like honor and courage written on them. I was starting to think that I had no idea what those words really meant.
“I was trying to use my skills as a distractor,” I said, my voice hoarse. It had been a day since the simulation, and I still felt as emotionally raw as when I’d been at the club. I’d messed up. Bad.
“Uh huh,” Richards said, appraising me with his eyes. “If I remember correctly, we don’t train our distractors to push their partner while they are holding a loaded gun.”
I didn’t respond, just stared first at Richards, then at the awards mounted on the wall behind him, my jaw clenching.
“You almost got several people killed.”
I rubbed my eyes, my face hot. My fingers came away wet with my tears. “I know,” I said.
“Your simulation was a travesty to our program, and frankly, I’m disappointed in you.”
I don’t know why that statement, amongst the rest, made me snap, but it did.
“Disappointed?” I asked looking up. “You’re the one who sent me uninformed and inexperienced into a simulation. How could that have possibly gone well?”
His face flushed, but his expression remained unchanged. “Your genetics were coded to handle high stress situations. Even inexperienced, you and Caden should’ve been able to successfully complete the simulation.”
“Okay, and that’s the other thing,” I said. “I thought these were simulations, not real missions.”
“Did you read the email sent out about the simulations?”
I hesitated. “Yes,” I finally said. I had read a paragraph of it.
“Then you should know that the simulations were heavily fortified missions. We had backup there to cover you and Caden, should anything go awry—which it did. You’re lucky they were there.
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